1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the domain of Internet browsing and particularly the recent use of dynamic objects within pages to be browsed.
2. Description of Related Art
Internet sites are composed of Internet pages written in languages adapted to Internet publication formats such as “HTML” (Hypertext Markup Language) or “XML” (Extensible Markup Language). These simple languages enable Internet site developers to define pages containing text and image fields to which they can assign properties (Markup). The different pages or fields in a page are linked to each other using a complex organization made using links (Hypertext). These Internet pages are viewed by users using software applications called browsers, capable of displaying these pages as they were designed on a user's computer. Recently, a new language was created to enable more functions within pages displayed by browsers. This language is called “DHTML” (Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language) and is used to integrate dynamic elements in Internet pages identified by tags within pages and defined by identifiers. After an Internet page has been downloaded from a server and displayed on the computer screen of a user who is viewing it, these dynamic elements are used to change the display with time and/or as a function of user's actions without any need for communication with a server. This special feature is possible due to the fact that these dynamic elements are characterised by the tag of each element, that reveals their nature. The browser uses the tag of each element to locate dynamic elements and references the corresponding objects using their identifier that provides a means of access to these identified objects. The identifier corresponds to an access reference to objects so that the browser can instantiate them, in other words create them and initialise them in accordance with parameters determined by the designer. This access reference to objects thus initialised enables execution of their specific functions called methods, and modification of their properties. When they are included in an Internet page, scripts executed within the software environment supplied by Internet browsers enable fast access to them due to this access reference. These scripts interpreted by browsers enable the execution of methods of these objects and dynamic modification of their display within the page.
In prior art, it is known that browsers enable the display of dynamic elements and execution of methods of dynamic objects to which they refer, but only for some given object types defined by browser designers. One important problem in this domain is that the different browser designers do not have the same view of implementations that should be made to the DHTML language. The result is that the different browsers do not support the same functions. A common standard is now being created but designers do not agree about objects to be implemented or the method of implementing them in their browsers. Some browsers enable access to dynamic objects when they are present in the page, since the browser automatically identifies them and interprets functions defined by these objects. Some browsers are also capable of interpreting the language of object method execution scripts, but they are incapable of identifying elements within Internet pages and therefore of referencing the corresponding objects.
Internet sites are known in prior art in which the use of dynamic elements has been abandoned so that users can access the same pages regardless of their browser. This solution has the disadvantage that sites thus designed do not have such an elegant appearance and are not as practical in use as those obtained with the current technology.
Internet sites in which pages are written with several different versions of programming code are also known in prior art, to enable access to different dynamic objects within pages, regardless of the browser used by the person viewing the Internet site. The server will send the appropriate type of page for the browser that requested downloading of a page. This solution introduces an implementation cost problem and a loss of time for Internet site designers that have to write all pages in several versions of programming code.
Prior art also includes processes enabling the use of dynamic objects regardless of the browser but which require that code lines specific to each dynamic element in the page containing dynamic elements should be included in each of the pages. These code lines define a variable initialised so as to contain a reference to the dynamic element concerned. Access to this reference when the page is being loaded enables all browser types to identify and use the corresponding dynamic object. This solution also makes it more difficult to develop Internet sites because it requires that code lines specific to each dynamic element contained in each page on the Internet site should be included, for the use of dynamic objects that are normally designed to avoid this type of systematic definition.